The colors produced by color printers can vary as a function of media type, ink, print heads, temperature, humidity, etc. Color management products allow the creation of device characterization profiles for devices such as printers. These profiles, such as International Color Consortium (ICC) compliant profiles, allow for proper color handling across many types of devices. For example, in order to create a printer profile, the printer outputs a test sheet of color patches arranged in a predetermined pattern. A color measurement device such as a spectrophotometer or calorimeter then scans the color patches, and the color measurements can be used create a profile for the printer that can be used to insure uniform color display.
Some hand held spectrophotometers include a contact device such as a wheel that contacts the color patches on the paper. This maintains a desired spatial relationship between the spectrophotometer and the paper, and as the spectrophotometer is moved, the wheel measures the speed and direction of the movement. Because the spectrophotometer device contacts the paper, it can distort the color patches, making the measurement by the spectrophotometer inaccurate.
In other known systems, a color measurement device such as a spectrophotometer or calorimeter is mounted in the paper path of the moving sheets in a printer to provide color measurements of the test color patches printed on the sheets as they pass the color measurement device. With a system such as this, the color measurement device does not contact the paper. However, such non-contact color measurement systems can be sensitive to variation in the distance between the color measurement device and the test color patches. Factors such as differences in media thickness or variations in a paper's position as it travels through a printer thus can reduce accuracy of the color measurement.
For these and other reasons, a need exists for the present invention.